Poetry Friday -- Bees

Substitute oregano for morning glories and this could be a poem about my garden. I let the oregano in my raised beds go wild this summer and it has bloomed nonstop. It has not spent a minute of the summer without a swarm of these "pirates" in "pantaloons heavy with gold and sunlight."


Bees and Morning Glories
by John Ciardi

Morning glories, pale as a mist drying,
fade from the heat of the day, but already
hunchback bees in pirate pants and with peg-leg
hooks have found and are boarding them.

This could do for the sack of the imaginary
fleet. The raiders loot the galleons even as they
one by one vanish and leave still real
only what has been snatched out of the spell.

I’ve never seen bees more purposeful except
when the hive is threatened. They know
the good of it must be grabbed and hauled
before the whole feast wisps off.

They swarm in light and, fast, dive in,
then drone out, slow, their pantaloons heavy
with gold and sunlight.


(the rest is here)

Today's round up is at Read. Imagine. Talk.